July and August were clearly busy!

I can't believe I haven't posted in so long! I always think about it and then there is some major incident or distraction. 

Henry and Charlie turned 3 in July. We had a small party at the Little Gym and it was a Bubble Guppies theme. They ran around and played with friends and had a blast. Nana, Papa Hat, Nonnee, Mim, Pop Pop and Mee Mee were there as well as Logan and Hayley. For their real birthday we took the boys to Dave and Busters to play games. The boys weren't really excited about presents, just cake! 

Later in the week, Adam and I went to Cabo San Lucas for 4 days of alone time! Then it was my birthday. It was just a regular day but I was so glad to be home with my babies! We took a trip to San Antonio and went to the rainforest cafe, the childrens museum and the Alamo a few weeks ago. We also drive to Crystal City to celebrate my grandmothers 90th birthday! 

The boys took two 2 week daily swimming lessons so their swimming has greatly improved. The twins can swim between 10-15 ft and Harrison can swim 30.  School starts for Harrison next week and things will get really busy. Fall swim lessons have started on Monday nights. The twins will take gymnastics Thursday morning. Harrison continues vision therapy on Fridays.  Harrison will take acting classes once/week. And Saturdays will be multi sport for all the boys, including cousin Blaine! They will play football, soccer, and t-ball. 

At the Mansion del Rio, San Antonio

At the Alamo

Cuddling at the hotel

Waiting for swimming lessons 

Las Ventanas, Cabo San Lucas

Henry and Charlie's 3rd birthday

Construction is moving quickly and we have been busy making final decisions. Still hoping for a 10/1 completion. The pool is almost done as well as the fence. The fountain will be installed soon. The framing is almost complete including the garage. 

The pool from the second floor. The garage and bunkhouse are in the right, master on the left.

Fountain 

Breakfast nook

Outdoor living in front. Living room on the left. 20 ft door will open to the outdoor area.

Master closet

View from master

The back door will look something like this. 

Well I am very exhausted from a day of swimming lessons, cleaning up one of Henry's poop disasters, and the usual insanity. Will update soon :)

Mid summer already?

Summer is flying by. I should be freaking that Harrison starts kindergarten in September. His class is made up of 4-6 year olds at Ace so he is in the same class/same teacher this year. No big changes for us! I think his teacher will really be impressed with his progress. He is counting to 100 and reading like crazy! He is a whiz at addition and subtraction too.

Activities are keeping us busy although we have decided to give piano a little break. His attitude wasn't so great about it so the teacher and I agreed that he needed a little vacation from piano for now. His acting class went so well that we signed up for another. This one was 3 hours/day for a week and included art, creative movement, and drama. He loved it! We take him to vision therapy on Fridays for an hour to help with his convergence and a few other eye issues. I had a meeting with the eye dr today and Harrison is making great progress. He should "graduate" in 8-9 months. We also do home exercises 3x/week. This is definitely an investment of time and money but we know its worth it! Normally we take them to swimming once a week year round. We took a break from that this summer and are doing a more intensive 2 week class where they go everyday. We just did 5 days straight and we have been very happy with their progress. And they love going swimming every night! Harrison's teacher even said that he always tries so hard and has a positive attitude. 

We have learned a few lessons lately with the boys. First of all, no snacks! When they don't snack they actually eat their meals! Also they don't get to play iPad unless they EARN it and that means helping me declutter the house in the mornings. At first Harrison was very dramatic about it and was very sure that his new arrangement might kill him. But he has come around and does it without a fuss now.

We took them to see Despicable Me 2 at the movies the other day and overall they did awesome for their ages. Henry kept telling me that he needed to go potty but actually he wanted to run up and down the hall and peek in all the doors. He is doing well with potty training and now Charlie is showing interest. I am being really laid back about it. No rush!

I needed a break from my precious kiddos and spent the aftenoon at the W pool last weekend. It was heaven! Then Adam met up later so we could have a double date at Congress (best food in town!). We stayed at the Driskill and had a nice night away. 

My advocare challenge is now over and I consider it a big success. About 2 lbs lost and 15 inches at the 30 day mark. I am much leaner and happier. Now I have to stick with it! I have been doing the Jillian Michaels kettlebell workout and I highly recommend it! You definitely feel it working!

There is a lot happening with the house. The bulldozer and jackhammers have been digging the hole for the pool. The fence is going up soon and framing should be compete in a few weeks. I haven't been on site for a few weeks so I will update with pictures soon! I had over a 3 hour meeting with the builder yesterday. So many decisions to make ASAP, it makes my head spin. I picked out the style of beams for the living room and guest house ceiling, the rock for the guest house fireplace, a 10 ft fountain was purchased for the front yard, the kitchen island will be 15 feet, we are going to have electricity and water in the playhouse, and Harrison is going to have a tiny secret passage to the theater! So many more details but those are the first things that come to mind. Its hard for Adam and I to even believe we are doing this. It won't feel real until we are living there! 

Soccer mom

I definitely feel like a soccer mom now. Or more like a chauffeur. Harrison has his acting class for an hour in the morning this week so the twins and I just sit and wait in the parking lot. Same with piano. Thank goodness for the car TV and iPads etc! The twins don't mind at all. He loves his class so I might look into an improv class for him soon. He needs a creative outlet. Such a big imagination! Henry is doing well with his potty training. Charlie still has no interest. I am down almost 9 inches from my cleanse so I am feeling great! I am very much looking forward to our Cabo getaway. Major house construction should start this week! Very excited about that. We had a laid back Fathers Day. Harrison made Adam a book and we showered him with gifts. MeeMee and PopPop are going to watch the boys Saturday so we can go to lunch and hit some antique stores. I can't find any new furniture I like so its time to go vintage and find the well made stuff! We are taking the boys to see the new Monsters inc movie on Sunday. The theater we go to is super fancy. The seats recline and you can order dinner and drinks. Although this won't be as enjoyable for me with my restricted diet! Still its always fun to go on adventure with the boys. And every outing with them is an adventure! 

Busy boys

We are finally in the summer routine. Harrison is taking piano once a week and doing vision therapy once a week. This week he has Bible School every morning (he loves it) and next week he has a drama class every morning. Instead of doing a weekly swim class this summer, we will do a 2 week daily class in July. 

Henry has taken an interest in potty training so I have been plopping him on the potty every 30 minutes. So far today he has gone 5 times with no accidents! Hopefully Charlie will get jealous of the hoop-lah and follow suit. 

The cleanse is going well and I have lost several inches. I will report the results on day 11 :). I am working out and can feel myself gaining muscle as I lose fat. Because of this I don't expect to lose much weight (if any) but I am trimming the fat. And that's the goal! 

We have a meeting tomorrow with our builder. Lots of decisions will be made! New construction should start this week or next, including the pool. Here is an example of the automatic pool cover and we thought we would add a "P" because why not? And you can actually walk on these. They are that sturdy. 

I thought I would end this post with this little gem that we found. Harrison leaves these random notes around. He and Charlie put their heads together on this one. They said it was about their baby cousin Keller but assured me they were just kidding. Lets hope!

Translation: Put him in a hot tub, get him, poop on him.

Oh to live with a houseful of boys!!! I wouldn't trade it for the world!

We are starting to plan the twins 3rd birthday party. Hard to believe! They are much more aware of this one, especially after celebrating Harrison's last month. Charlie informed Henry this morning that he was NOT sharing his Bubble Guppies birthday party with him, but that he was invited. (How kind of him). Its a hard thing to explain to them! Maybe one day they can separate their parties but not quite yet. :) I have been trying to make time for dates with my boys. People may not realize that when you have twins plus 1 or more, the twins rarely get 1 on 1 time with their parents. Harrison and I had 2+ years of that quality time that formed such a strong bond. So I took Charlie out last weekend for 2 grocery trips and a lunch. He felt soooooo special and even bragged to his brothers about it which made them both cry. He said "I'm going on a date with mommy. Not you and not you" (as he points). He is so sassy. It was awesome spending time with him and he is a great helper at the grocery store. He picked all the fruit and veggies, weighed them, and loaded everything up at the checkout counter. He has always loved helping, cooking, and cleaning. Henry will be my date next weekend. Harrison and I recently had a date to a "treasure store", (an antiques store). He loved it and touched EVERYTHING despite my protests. But it was definitely an adventure! He thinks rotary phones are hilarious. On a side note, it's depressing when you are only 33 at an antique store and everything from your childhood is there! House plans are moving along. We have a delay on our septic permit but should be resolved quickly. The current one was about half the size needed, was too close to the house and tangled up in tree roots. We are getting a new larger one and putting it in a different place. We made final decisions on the pool and I think it will be beautiful. It's a simple rectangle. 16 x 32. Lion statues perched at each corner shooting water to the middle and a big beautiful "P" monogram at the bottom. We hope (as in I hope it fits in the budget) to put solar panels on the garage roof to heat and cool the pool so we can get a few more months out of it in spring/fall and it won't feel like a miserable hot bath in August. The boys are still little and learning to swim but have all been in lessons since 18 months old. I only agreed to a pool if I could have a cover. You push a button (only accessible by us) and a hard cover comes out. The pool will stay covered unless we are swimming. At least when they are young. In other news, I started a cleanse today! I have never done one but my body needs it. We are going to Cabo San Lucas later this summer so losing a few inches would be fabulous! I will measure in 11 days and will keep you posted. And yes I still get to eat food!

The timing could have been better....

The timing we chose to build our forever home is probably the worst it could have been. It's go time. Its actually starting to feel real. Adam and I have 9000 decisions to make (I think that's the actual number). Store trips, meetings, construction site visits, internet research (looking at endless pictures on houzz.com - ok I do that anyway). Do I have time for this? Nope. But more importantly I don't even have the ability! Can you imagine taking 3 super energetic boys age 5 and under to a lighting store? We are going to have to get really creative to get this all done and it might involve 3 leashes! 

Here are some pictures that have served as inspiration for us for the fun stuff.  The majority of our family's members are little boys. Our house should reflect that! 

I haven't met with the playground designer yet but we have budgeted for an amazing play area. Pirate playscape plus 2 story playhouse with a zip line to connect them. Harrison has had an active role in planning this as you can imagine. He is type A just like his mommy!

Room themes! Gotta have room themes! The themes aren't changing, just upgrading. Henry adores animals (and babies, cake, and bacon). Obviously animals made the most sense for a theme out of those choices! I decided to turn Charlie's castle slide bed (which never really fit in) into the bed below. A hut in the middle of his safari room! It goes perfectly with his giant giraffe and animal paintings and 300 stuffed animals that he squeezes in bed with every night (my angel even tucks them in, kisses them, and gives them a sip of water). It will be an easy change to the bed and our builder/designer is all over it. And yes the slide will remain! 

Now isn't this the most amazing playroom you have ever seen?! It's fun, whimsical, more mature than a baby's playroom and most importantly, its MASCULINE! I am dead set on recreating this room with the exception of the chairs that look like they are growing some alien fungus. The faux fireplace is going to happen and I have already started hitting up antique stores for the perfect one. That carpet will be tough to find as its custom made (same with the tent) but I will find a way to at least stick to that color combo. The ceiling is easy and my builder says its inexpensive (but looks fancy!) And of course we will have the manly wood paneling. The place where the windows are will have Nana doors. These are floor to ceiling slider doors that open the room up to the outside. This room overlooks the pool. The pool will be the most childproofed pool on planet earth but I will talk about that later. There will be oodles of storage in this room and a built in twin bed. 

It's hard to top the playroom but I think the bunkhouse might end up being our favorite room. The bunkhouse is the pool house/guesthouse/former detached garage. It will have 2 sets of custom built in FULL SIZED bunks. Rock and wood everywhere. Fireplace. Indoor/outdoor bar also overlooking the pool. Full bathroom. It will be our cozy little getaway and multipurpose room! I am excited to give guests and even families a lovely place to stay. Now taking reservations! :)

Little Charlie loves cars and his favorite thing to do is line them up. So when I saw this it was a no brainer. I snagged a real working stoplight on a post at an antique store as well as a huge "GO" sign. It looks like a stop sign but green. Perfect for Charlie's personality. 

Harrison's room won't change much. He has a camping theme complete with tent, hammock, pretend campfire, and star projector. I have no pictures to share on the media room but I am equally excited about those plans. Adam and I are dreaming of bringing our little boys to the house they will grow up in! 

So I took a break, can you blame me?

You will probably notice that around the time the twins were entering toddler age, the posts came to a halt! Funny how that happens! I have been punishing myself internally for not blogging but I have to cut myself some slack. 3 mouths to feed, 3 bodies to clean, non stop refereeing...the hubby and I don't get a lot of "me" time, that is for sure. But I want to record our memories, even if they may seem mundane now. I will enjoy reading them later and I know the boys will too! So first things first, I should sum up the past few years I guess! Harrison started a preschool a few days a week at age 3.5. It wasn't a good fit unfortunately and well he pretty much hated it. It broke my heart. At age 4 he was accepted to Ace Academy and its been a dream come true for us. He is challenged, learning at an amazing rate and LOVES school. The kids are sweet and brilliant and the teachers are loving but keep them in line. Every day is different. Classes include science, yoga, EI (emotional intelligence) where they discuss bullying and really anything that's bothering them, Spanish, art, music, and PE. These are all different teachers who specialize in these subjects! He takes piano twice a week and swimming on Saturdays. His writing has improved so much and he is now reading. He can do addition up to 15 (wow!). He has accomplished amazing things this year and formed great friendships. He just finished his first year. He will get to have the same teacher next year. His class is made up of 4-6 year olds. We have decided to stick with private school for the long haul and feel the is the absolute best option for our kids. His 5th birthday party was last weekend and was a blast with about 55 people in attendance! Guests included his grandparents, the Kimbles, the The Bowns, the Peeples, the Youngs and about 8 of his classmates and families. We held it at Pump it Up which is a bouncy house party place. The kids had a great time. Harrison told me over and over "I can't believe this is my birthday party". He was truly in awe, as he is every year. It brings me great joy to awe him every year. I guess my love language is parties! Ha! :) We are already planning #6! The only not so fun thing to report is he is having a little vision trouble. His vision is 20/20 but his binocular vision is poor because of weak eye muscles, making reading a struggle. The optometrists were extremely impressed with his reading seeing as he had this challenge! I had suspected there might be a problem for awhile because reading was harder than I expected. One day he told us that the words on the page were moving and vibrating so I immediately took him in for a checkup. But the good news is this is fixable. The eye muscles can be strengthened just like any other and I think life for him is going to get a lot easier once we work on this! Other than that, Adam and I are amazed by Harrison as we always have been. He is handsome, hilarious, and brilliant. He is kind to others but super sensitive. This causes his self esteem to plummet on a daily basis but we remind him daily how awesome he is. He loves his brothers (well sometimes its love/hate) but they really are best friends. He is as cuddly as he is always been and I hate to think about that changing. I will force my cuddles on him if so. He is interested in acting and is going to do an acting camp at Zach Scott this summer. He makes up plays and loves to direct them. He teaches me yoga poses and voice exercises. I could ramble about my first born all day obviously but I better not. :) And of course there is Henry and Charlie, with as much personality as their big bro. Where to begin....I am exhausted just thinking about it! Having 3 boys within a 2 year age range is not for the faint of heart. Our kids have pushed us past every physical, mental and emotional limit that we have! They are worth it, don't get me wrong. But the past 2 years have been a doozy. So much fighting with boys, so much rough housing! They may have shared a womb but they are as different as they could be. Henry is literally the sweetest little boy on the planet. He gives kisses and hugs like crazy and loves animals and babies. There is a purity and innocence in his heart that is rare. On the flip side, if you mess with him, he will clobber you. Slap your face, pinch you, kick you, whack you with a blunt object. It's kind of hard to explain that to someone, but that's Henry! He was not an early talker like Harrison but he hit all the other milestones at the same time (ABC's, numbers etc). He loves the alphabet, probably his greatest love of all. He also loves Ghostbusters, books, dressing up as Super Why (his favorite reading super hero), and cake. He is smart, has the most precious face, killer dance moves, and to know him is to adore him. Charlie is something else. I predict he will be a CEO at a major company. He will be some sort of a boss! He is so driven, so determined, so competitive! He is so cute and has these puppy dog eyes. He uses these to his advantage daily. But he is super sweet and very loving and sensitive. He picks things up quick and he has amazing motor skills. He tells silly jokes and loves to follow Harrison around the house playing detective. He is a daddy's boy but still needs his mommy too. He also can sing! He loves playing with my makeup and accessorizing. He often goes to sleep wearing a fedora, mittens, or sunglasses. His favorite thing to play with is his cars. And they all share a love of dressing up and sword fighting. They make our house a fun place to be. Chaotic, but fun. Adam is going on year 8 as a lawyer. We can't believe that! He made the Texas Monthly Rising Stars list for the past 3 years and everything is going better than we could have ever dreamed with his firm. The only other thing that has consumed my time lately, other than the boys, is that we are building our dream home! We decided to sell our house and move closer to the schools that we liked. We are renting a house almost next door to Harrison's school while we tear down and remodel our new house. I will definitely have future posts about this big event in our lives!